(Phys.org)—It was an interesting week for physics as a team of researchers found a way to extend Einstein's spooky action to allow for its use in quantum networks, to more than two optical systems. They believe it paves ...

The Greenland Ice Sheet is the second-largest body of ice on Earth. It covers an area about five times the size of New York State and Kansas combined, and if it melts completely, oceans could rise by 20 feet. Coastal communities ...

A new study suggests that a warming period more than 400,000 years ago pushed the Greenland ice sheet past its stability threshold, resulting in a nearly complete deglaciation of southern Greenland and raising global sea ...

Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean, it's being melted from below by geothermal heat, researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at ...

A new study has found that the Antarctic Ice Sheet began melting about 5,000 years earlier than previously thought coming out of the last ice age – and that shrinkage of the vast ice sheet accelerated during eight distinct ...

(Phys.org)—An international team of researchers has run multiple global climate computer simulations multiple times and has used the simulation results to estimate the local impact of rising sea levels on coastal cities ...

Two new studies by researchers at the University of California, Irvine and NASA have found the fastest ongoing rates of glacier retreat ever observed in West Antarctica and offer an unprecedented look at ice melting on the ...

What would we do differently if sea level were to rise one foot per century versus one foot per decade? Until now, most policy and research has focused on adapting to specific amounts of climate change and not on how fast ...

Current sea level rise

Current sea level rise has occurred at a mean rate of 1.8 mm per year for the past century, and more recently at rates estimated near 2.8 ± 0.4 to 3.1 ± 0.7 mm per year (1993-2003). Current sea level rise is due partly to human-induced global warming, which will increase sea level over the coming century and longer periods. Increasing temperatures result in sea level rise by the thermal expansion of water and through the addition of water to the oceans from the melting of continental ice sheets. Thermal expansion, which is well-quantified, is currently the primary contributor to sea level rise and is expected to be the primary contributor over the course of the next century. Glacial contributions to sea-level rise are less important, and are more difficult to predict and quantify. Values for predicted sea level rise over the course of the next century typically range from 90 to 880 mm, with a central value of 480 mm. Based on an analog to the deglaciation of North America at 9,000 years before present, some scientists predict sea level rise of 1.3 meters in the next century. However, models of glacial flow in the smaller present-day ice sheets show that a probable maximum value for sea level rise in the next century is 80 centimeters, based on limitations on how quickly ice can flow below the equilibrium line altitude and to the sea.